Academy Awards 2011: The Unbearable Whiteness of the Oscars

It's a wonder that the security guards at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences didn’t stop Mo’nique and make her show ID when she arrived to help announce the Oscar nominations early Tuesday at the organization’s Beverly Hills headquarters. After all, she was the only person of color involved with the extravaganza, since the 83rd annual Oscar nominations have the dubious distinction of being an all-white affair.

Setting aside the more obscure, technical categories, when it comes to the best picture award along with the major nominations for acting, writing and directing, there are, ahem, zero people of color in the Oscar race this year.

There are so few significant African American characters in any of the 10 films nominated for best picture that comedian Aziz Ansari did a bit about it at the Producer’s Guild Awards on Saturday night, wondering why there couldn’t have been at least one black kid checking his Facebook account in “The Social Network,” adding that things were so white that in “127 Hours,” when James Franco’s hiker character cuts off his arm, it doesn't even turn black.

It's hard not to notice how few minorities had any visible roles in this year’s most lauded films. “The Social Network” offers us a virtually lilywhite Harvard; “The Fighter” is set in a oh-so-white, blue-collar Boston neighborhood; “The King’s Speech” depicts an all-white, upper-crust, 1930s-era London; “Toy Story 3,” like most Pixar films, is set in a fantasy suburbia without any obvious references to minorities; while “True Grit” takes us back to the Old West, where the only black faces I can remember seeing are that of a manservant and a stable boy.

And if you’re wondering about lead actor nominee Javier Bardem, he’s from Spain.

The fault lies not with the academy, which has in recent years happily given out the occasional statuette to a black actor or actress lucky enough to get a big part in a serious film. Mo’Nique was on hand Tuesday morning because she won for supporting actress last year for her role in “Precious,” a film made by Lee Daniels, an African American filmmaker. Forest Whitaker won a lead actor Oscar in 2007 for “The Last King of Scotland,” and Halle Berry won a lead actress Oscar in 2002 for “Monster’s Ball” on the same night Denzel Washington won lead actor for “Training Day.”

You can argue that some minorities have been snubbed, starting with Spike Lee, who’s never been nominated for a directing award, not even for landmark films like “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X.” But the Oscars reflect what’s happening in the marketplace. And the cold truth is that black talent rarely receives Oscar opportunities because it works in one of the most minority-free industries in America.

Two African American coaches have faced off in the Super Bowl. Black coaches have won NBA championships. A black man has served on the Supreme Court, been a senator, an astronaut, a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, won a Pulitzer Prize and — oh, yes — is currently serving as president of the United States. But if you look at the people who make the decisions about what movies are made in Hollywood, you’d have to look far and wide to find any prominent AfricanAmerican or Latino executives.

There are no studio chairmen or heads of production who are black or Latino. In fact, there are barely any people of color in any high-level positions at any major studio, talent agency or management firm. When I asked a couple of reporter pals to name the most powerful black executive in town, a lot of head-scratching ensued before we decided that the person with the most clout was probably James Lassiter, Will Smith’s longtime business partner and production company chief.

Smith has plenty of juice in town, with every studio salivating at the chance to make his next project. But he’s an anomaly and largely more interested in making commercial movies than Oscar-oriented fare (although he has twice been nominated for an acting Oscar).

Of last year’s top-grossing films, only one in the top 40 was directed by anyone of color, “The Book of Eli,” which starred Washington and was directed by the Hughes Brothers. Tyler Perry had two films in the Top 100 box-office grossers domestically, but like most films with African American casts, they made virtually no money overseas, which is where Hollywood increasingly looks for its profits.

What does this have to do with the Oscars? The films that end up being Academy Award nominees are usually labors of love and rarely feature the kind of easily accessible action heroes or broadly comic characters that suit a studio’s bottom-line sensibility. If you don’t have a person of color in the room where the decision-making happens, fervently arguing why a film should be brought into the world, it’s awfully hard for a project revolving around African American characters to emerge with a greenlight or any substantial financial backing.

Black and Latino actors can get parts as soldiers in an action film or comic sidekicks in a comedy, but when it comes to the kind of dramatic roles that attract Oscar attention, they need a lucky break, like the one Mo’Nique got from having a black filmmaker making the casting choices. Or the one Jennifer Hudson got, with her role in “Dreamgirls” established on the stage. Or the one Morgan Freeman got, landing a Oscar nomination last year as Nelson Mandela in “Invictus,” because he has a long track record of working with Clint Eastwood, and well, who else could play Mandela?

Hollywood is usually impervious to embarrassment, but perhaps this is one of those signal moments when the industry should engage in a little soul-searching about the image it projects to the outside world. At Oscar time, the spotlight is on show business, which in an increasingly multicultural country turns out to be a business that is just as white on the outside as it is on the inside.

--Patrick Goldstein

Photo: Mo'Nique at the 83rd Academy Awards nominations announcement in Beverly Hills,

Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

 

Comments

[Wendy]

There's a lack of Asian actors nominated too.

[scoot]

I blame Tyler Perry

[Brendan Ryan]

Taking another look at African Americans in the Oscar race, one might conclude that over the past ten years, there have been a considerable amount of African Americans either being nominated or winning Academy Awards at the Oscars on a pretty regular basis. Now when a person considers this, the numbers add up, and the compounding glory that awarding African Americans with Oscars has given them, one might think that there is actually a predominant African American presence at the Oscars almost every year. With this in mind, one needs to consider the well being of almost the Academy Awards themselves, and contend that if allowing the facts to speak for themselves, the Oscars have become almost too African American, and that this year's Oscar nominees reflect this effect, not due to the outcry it's already receiving, but because of the success so many of Hollywood's African Americans have recently experienced at the Oscars. This year's "all-white Oscars" is a reflection of the progress that African Americans have made over the last ten years with a whole slew of African American nominees and winners, this year's Oscars should be looked at that way, not as an act of hatred or discrimination, even in the absence of any African Americans with this year's Academy Award nominations.

Brendan Ryan

The Brendan Ryan Company
Houston, Texas

[George Sands]

Excuse me, but there are more colors in the "rainbow" than just white, black and brown. Your story is guilty of the same exclusionary practices as the entertainment industry which you criticize.

[Stump Barnes]

Patrick,

Someone could also complain about there not being more Jewish basketball players in the NBA, or more African-American hockey players in the NHL, or more Asian-American Hip-Hop superstars. Is it some conspiracy, latent racism, or just cultural affinity?

It's not only Blacks and Hispanics that are shut out of most of Hollywood's power suites. Face it, the film & TV business (at the corporate/creative development level) is one of the least diverse industries when it comes to educational, cultural, ethnic, religious, and political diversity.

[Michael]

As at least one other person has said, people of Asian descent don't have much of a presence in the Academy's annual self-congratulatory party.
I think there might be one person of Asian descent nominated for one of the smaller awards, but look at Hollywood's yearly offerings -- just how many roles for Asians are there? And when there is an Asian role, Hollywood will often just cast a white person to play it.
The rest of the roles are very stereotypical and racist. Usually, they're of the nameless, faceless Asian soldier variety. That's soon to be seen in the upcoming Red Dawn remake.
You talk about racism and discrimination within the Academy, and yet you only lament the plight of Blacks and Latinos. By a large margin, Blacks receive regular roles in Hollywood movies and have growing influence in which movies get made -- it may not take the cake, but it's a far, far cry from where Asian-Americans are.
And Latinos even get more regular roles than Asians do, and not all dehumanizing and stereotypical as they are for Asian people.
If you're going to condemn the Academy for discriminatory practices, you need to look at yourself as well for your limited-in-scope column.

[Craig]

You're asking white people to go out of their way to care about non-white people in a business where GREEN is KING. I am African-American, and also a filmmaker. Rather than focus on how white the Oscars is, let's equally put out a Call to Action for people of color to pick up cameras and shoot their own stories. You see this same issue on the festival circuit. It is really unfair to wait on the white executives to decide to do a "race picture", which one, they have proven to be least profitable outside the states and two, they don't reflect the people who're in charge to greenlight them. Sure, people want to see their images reflected back to them on screen. But rather than attack Mr. Whitefolks, go after the lack of artists who are willing to make their own stories. *Need a historical reference? Oscar Micheaux

[TeeGirl]

Let's face it. It is not only the Oscars that are lily-white, how about television? The shows on the CW usually have one African-American guy in the group but the brown-skinned African American woman ceases to exist. And I say 'brown-skinned" because the mixed-race African American woman seems to be the only type depicted when there is a woman. Latina's don't exist, nor do Asians. And if any persons of color are in a cast, there is only one ethnic group represented as if having more would confuse the viewers. Good Lord, Hollywood, wake up.

[David Cooper]

This article wasn't about simply blacks and latinos. It was about minorities, in general. These races are merely reference points but such over-simplifications do marginalize other minorities even more so. There too is a great desparity of an asian/pacific-islander presence in the media and that means a desparity of experiences and perspectives. Someone needs to speak to this also.

Either way, the point is a lack of opportunity and representation, not presence at awards time! But the dirth of minority actors in critically-viable films limits such a possibility at all. It would appear that most filmmakers are interested in producing their own stories (e.g. The Fighter) and with people who look like them (e.g. Toy Story 3). Makes sense...but what about everyone else.

As a black actor I can tell you that I am rarely given the chance TO EVEN AUDITION for certain roles. Not because they are beyond my ability or that they are racially-specific. Producers simply have no imagination. They can't imagine that a minority actor could just as easily play the same role that a white actor performs.

Unlike sports this isn't about ones' "cultural affinity". Owners & Managers don't care about what color you are! It's not about image but atleticism and skill. In the media this isn't the case. Not even in the music business. The seeming non-existent of asian rappers is not for lack of ability, desire or even trying. It is for some executive's lack of imagination. This is why eminem is such a cultural phenomenon.

You're not going to see a black, Black Swan. But they'd surely cast me as a janitor mopping the rehearsal floor. And, because of such desparities and racial politics mediocre performances get nominated and awarded (e.g. Denzel Washington, Training Day/Jennifer Hudson, Dream Girls/Morgan Freeman, Invictus) so as to suggests hollywood's diversity.

This may be business as usual but does mass malpractice equate to a just society (e.g. anti-gay marriage)? It is Hollywood and I have to face this everyday; that doesn't mean we should be content with or relent to the cultural hegemony. It means we have some work to do.

[Ed Brazas]

Well gosh,either there were no blacks who were worthy of a nomination-or perhaps the liberal dems who run Hollywood are racists.